ABSTRACT
Jackie Robinson’s breakthrough in Brooklyn is one of the most celebrated, researched, written about events in American history. As scholar Bill Simons described, Robinson’s pioneering first season still stands as “one of the most widely commented on episodes in American race relations,” an irresistible story of grace and dignity that has become sacrosanct in American folklore.1 It has been told and re-told in film, on Broadway, and in enough books to fill entire sections in bookstores and libraries.2 More relevant here is the fact that a great deal of industry has gone into documenting and analyzing newspaper coverage of Robinson during his first year as a Dodger, including studies of coverage by the black press, by mainstream media, and on the differences between the two.3
